


Af/?jU^ n//?(>i^ 



,//y^*^ 



E 713 
.H6 
Copy 1 



GREATER AMERICA 



ADDRESS 



HON. DAVID J. HILL, LL. D., 

Assistant Secretary of State. 



Delivered at the Annual Banquet of the Rochester 
Chamber of Commerce, December 8, 1898. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

JUDD & DETWEILER, PRINTERS. 

1898. 






58179 



Air. Presidoif nnd (Iniflcm/'ii of flic ('lifiiii/>er of ('(ntfiDrrce : 

It is witli a thrill of peculinr ])loasur(' tliaf I greet you 
liere tonight. A wandcrci' upon the tacc of the earth, I feel 
like a returning niai'incr when the light of his home Hashes 
out over the sea to salute him, and a great wave of emotion 
sweeps from memory thedi'eary days and perilous nights of 
a long and tempestuous voyage. My eountry — with what 
patriotic ])i'ide 1 call it mine! — uever seemed so great, its 
people so noble, its future and theirs so full of hope and 
promise. A great crisis, In'avely met and victoriously passed, 
lifts a country, as an individual, to a })rouder elevation than 
before. When last I met with the members of this Chamber 
the roar of Niagara blended with the voices of the speakers, 
but a power greater and moi-e irresistible than that of the 
great cataract has changed the destiny of twelve millions of 
human beings, and a more [)otent voice has commanded the 
action of this nation and called it to their rescue. Incidents 
of an unparalleled nature have kindled a conflagration 
which all the waters of Niagara could not ([uench. 'Idie 
miraculous feats of our small but illustrious navy hll the 
world with wonder, and indicate more ehxjuently than 
human words that the path of the Republic to its })lace 
among the nations lies in the broad highway of the deej). 
Our little army, the smallest of any great power in the world, 
has swollen in a few months to a mighty host, gathere<l from 
every quarter of the Union, the workshop and the field, the 

(3) 



lonely ranch and the fashionable club, eager to follow a 
common standard and shed its blood upon a common battle- 
field. Many a pale face has turned for the last time to the 
silent stars of a tropic sky, and a subtler foe than whistling 
l)ullets has racked with agony the mute sufferers in our fever- 
stricken camps. Thousands of brave volunteers have almost 
wept with disappointment because they could not press to 
the front, but when History completes her roll of heroes and 
tells their fateful story the untrembling hand Avhich records 
the solemn judgment of the world will write : 

"They serve as well who only .stand and wait." 

Had Na[)oleon won the victories which have been achieved 
under the wise leadership of our great President, a new em- 
pire might have been called into being and this sober Re- 
public have l)een suddenly swept from an era of industrial 
peace irdo an era of unbounded conquest and im})erialism. 
But that mistaken word " imperialism," suggested by the 
unexpected fruits of victory, does not express the motives 
and sentiments of this nation. The American people have 
not coveted territories beyond the sea. They have engaged 
in war not for land, but for humanity ; not to multi})ly their 
possessions, but to vindicate their })rinci})les. Empires are 
made by personal ambitions, but the history of our great 
moments of victory is the roll-call of sacrifice. The struggle 
for independence reached its culmination in Washington's 
refusal of a crown, and the perpetual union of the States 
was sealed by a bleeding nation's supreme renunciation in 
the martyrdom of Lincoln. In the solemn moment when 
the ways parted at the mile-stone of intervention in the 



tragedy of Cuba's wrongs, — i]\v one IcadiiiLi' to iialidiial liii- 
miliation, tlie other to iiianil'cst duty. — the sci-cnc vnicc of 
our o-j-eat, ])oa('c'doviuii' statcsniau, William MrKinlcy. whose 
kiry,e intelliui'iUT (urncij with sadness from the sweet vision 
of peace, recalled to the nation the nohle sentiment, 

" He ifJ tiirice ariiuMl w lio liatli his ([iiairi'l Just." 

Tiieii, panoplied in the confidence of the peo})le, he who 
was the hist to abandon peace stood first in the hour of war, 
not to ac(|uire new dominion, hut to extend the rule of jus- 
tice. 

And now that victory lias })laced the fate of twelve mil- 
lion human benigs in tlie hands of a trium[)liant nation, 
with wdiat right does a spii'it of criticism, which derives its 
inspiration from conditions that have ceased, stamj) with 
the word '■ im})erialism '" the magnanimity of this Kepuhlic 
in extending the sheltering wings of its protection over those 
whom the war has liberated from oppression and misrule? 
The momentous tpiestion presented to the Government of 
the United States by the results of the war has ])een : " Hav- 
ing attempted by liumanitarian intervention, and without 
ulterior purposes, to stop the horrors of a perennial strife, 
shall the American peo[ile, for fear of new responsil)ilities, 
hurl these millions back into the abyss of anarchy ? " That 
is the question which our Commissioners have tried to 
unswer at Paris, and which this nation nuist answer before 
tlie Throne of Eternal Justice. 

What, now, will our national legislators do witli the terri- 
tories ceded by Spain to the United States? Will they re- 
store them to the vengeance of the vanquished ? A\dll they 



6 

Icjivc tlu'iu to the occiii)ation and pai'tition of other powers? 
Will they al)an(loii them to their own inexperience and in- 
ternal di.scords, or will they attempt to establisli within them 
the conditions of peace and ultimate self-government ? 

There is nothing novel in tlie idea of territorial expan- 
sion, which has marked every period of our national history. 
Only a little strip of territory along the Atlantic seaboard 
was peopled by the victorious colonies at the close of the 
war of independence, but the American Commissioners were 
instructed to claim for the colonies the whole area east of 
the Mississippi. Franklin, the most astute diplomatist of 
his time, coveted in addition the whole of Canada. In 1803 
Jefferson strained the (constitution to the breaking point, as 
he l)elieved, to secure the purchase of the great province of 
Louisiana, which at one stroke doubled the area of the 
country. His op})onents considered his act not only uncon- 
stitutional, but in effect a dissolution of the Union ; and a 
historian has accused him of " making himself monarch of 
the new territory, and of holding, against its protests, the 
power of its old kings." Jackson did not hesitate to invade 
and conquer Florida for the peace of the nation, Texas came 
into the Union by revolution, and the entire tract which 
now forms the prosperous States stretching from Mexico to 
Oregon was the fruit of war and forced occu})ation. Thus, 
by continued territorial expansion, the better part of this 
continent has become incorporated into the United States, 
and fi'om a few scattered settlements along our eastern coast, 
a great nation has been formed, bounded by two oceans 
with widespread commerce over both, and not one human 
being in all this vast continental area regrets for a moment 



ilu' liistoric iicct'ssilics wliicli Iuinc u'ivcii to our uiiilc<l Ke- 
|>ul>li(' a roiniiKiii law and a coimiioii lilxTtv. 

Now conditions of existence have swept away forevei' the 
fears and niisii'ivinu's which were felt at evei'V thrilling- act 
in this iii-(>at drama ol' continental expansion, rndreanied 
of facilities of transj^ortation have wrout;ht this wonder and 
rendx'i'ed possihle the unity and solidai'ity of so vast an en- 
terprise. The j)ower of steam locomotion lias carried west- 
ward a vigorous race, pbintinti,- homes like those of Xew 
England upon the sunny slopes of the racitic, und our orig- 
inal western boundary, the Mississippi, has become the cen- 
tral waterway of a united nation, l)oi'dering upon widely 
separated seas. Is our expansion to be bounded by these 
great waters, or will the annihilation of s|)ace by mechanical 
energy permit of a still wider horizon ? Having won from 
nature and untitled claimants the possession of what is most 
desirable ui)on this continent, shall we henceforth renounce 
all dominion upon the sea? Shall we declare that the ocean, 
whose broad bosom makes the whole world one, has only 
perils for our commerce and our polity ? Jefferson, indeed, 
once said that our national ambition should be limited to 
possessions that would not need a navy to defend them ; but 
that was long ago. Could he contenn>late the ma}) of the 
United States today, an area connecting the two great oceans 
of the temperate zone, and believe, in the presence of modern 
battle-ships, that our present territories could be defended 
without a navy? Could he imagine that the late war could 
have been conducted, or that our seaboard cities could have 
escaped destruction without a lun-y ? \\^ould he not rather 
believe that, with friendly neighljors on the north and south 



and our })oints of exposure cliiefly on our coasts, our princi- 
l)al need of defense is a still greater navy ? 

We seem, indeed, to have renounced our hope of primacy 
upon the ocean by suffering the decline of our mercantile 
marine, and that, too, in an era when the forces of industrial 
production have far outstripped the development of markets. 
In 1860 the merchant navy of the United States was, after 
that of England, the largest in the world. Seventy per cent, 
of our foreign trade was then carried by our own vessels, but 
the proportion has declined until now all but 11 per cent, 
has been taken from us, while England's carrying trade has 
in the meantime doubled ; yet, notwithstanding this, our 
annual trade with Asia and Oceanica has grown to 
$62,000,000, nearly twice our entire trade with Central and 
South America. Our exports to China have trebled since 
1890, and our entire volume of trade with that country is now 
equal to that of the whole of continental Euroi)e, outside of 
Russia. The Far East has become the land of i)romise for 
the merchant, and Civilization, full-grown, having made the 
circuit of the globe, returns with priceless treasures to its 
primitive cradle, to lay them at tlie shrine of its nativity. 

Having created and developed our industries by a judi- 
cious system of protection until we can successfully compete 
with foreign nations by the greater inventive powers of our 
people and the more extended aj)plication of machiner}-, 
shall we now refuse to protect our commerce? Shall we 
forget that we are no longer merely an Atlantic, but have 
become also a Pacific power, with hve thousand miles of 
coastline on the Pacific ocean? Shall we forget that the 
people of the Great West will be more closely in sympathy 
with their fellow-citizens of the East, if they also have their 



9 

niavitinu' cities niul their |>r()|Kii1i(m (if iiilei'ii;it ioiial ti'jule'.'' 
And, liiially, shall we forget that the iKiMlieal suh(li\isi(iii 
and eoniniei'eial oeeupation of Asia hy foreii^n powers in- 
volvc^s tlie |)er|>etnal isohition of this continent '/ 

The (K'stiny of nations is not (h 'tern lined hy the in(H\"i(hiaI 
wilh nor can national (hities he ineasnre(l hy pi'ivate stand- 
ards. Nations orow hy ol>eyinu' the instinct of development, 
an instinc-t [)hinted in [\\vu\ l)y Ilim who hohh'th the sea as 
in the hohow of liis han(h 'Pheii' n-reatness is not in tlie 
hreathli of their heritage, nor in tlie fertility of theii' lands, 
nor in the wealth of their mines. J^ittle Israel has given 
the law of righteousness to the ends of the earth ; little 
Greece has shaped the humanities foi' all time; little Hol- 
land, pusliiny,' hack the sea with one hand, has distrihuted 
the wealth of the world with the other; little Switzeihind 
has shone like a star of Heaven, guarding; her liherties 
among the snowy fastnesses of her Alj)ine })eaks and 
ghiciers; little New luigiand has nurtured her Puritans and 
sent forth her teachers of self-government ; hut it is one 
mission to prepare the seed, another to scatter it. I cannot 
believe it an evil for any people that the Stars and Stripes, 
the symhol of liherty and law, should lloat over them. 
There have been those who have thought otherwise, hut 
theyliave returned with penitence and confession when their 
dream was ended. There was a day when the sovereign 
power of this nation was thought to contiict with the rights 
of indivi(hials and communities to go their ways and shaj)e 
tlieir own destinies, but one of the most ])recious fi-uits of 
the late war is the new cvideiU'C that the nation has a truer 
instinct than the individual. Wlien a lady congratulated 
" Joe Wheeler," as we lovingly call liim, upon his promotion 



10 

as major general, the brave old soldier burst into tears and 
said : " It is not that, Madam, which gives me most pleasure; 
it is to have fought under the dear old Flag that liears the 
Stars and Stripes ! " 

Greater America will lose her greatness if she fbrgets the 
political philosophy that has made her great. The vital 
principle of tliat philosophy is the sovereignty of the i)eople, 
which in the last analysis is only another name for the fact 
that in every humblest creature possessing intelligence there 
is a spark of that Divine Reason which animates the world. 
It is a great lesson of the war that it is not in the tonnage of 
ships, nor in the weight of armor, that the fate of battles 
rests. " These are Her Majesty's ships," says the Spaniard ; 
''These are our ships," says the American ; and your pleas- 
ure yacht, with a Wainwright in command, sends the terror- 
striking destroyers to the bottom of the sea ! The sover- 
eignty of the people behind the guns and in the trenches, 
whether the soldier be a New York dude or a Texas ranch- 
man, speaks in his aim and in his heroism ; for he does not 
merely represent, he helps to constitute, the sovereignty of 
the nation. 

A giant's task now confronts the American peoi)le, ])ut 
their histor}^ gives the assurance that they will not trend )le 
before it. Amid the din of war and the strife of nations, in 
the busy marts of trade and among the distant islands of the 
sea, dwells an unseen force slowly shaping the destinies of 
the world. It speaks alike in nature, in the human soul 
and in the long drama of history. Witness a nation rising 
to the full splendor of its responsibilities, and you will see 
there written in letters of shining light, the august and im- 
perative law of universal development. 



L.ofC. 



LIBKHKY Oh CUNUKtbb 



013 744 832 4 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 744 832 4 



Holllnger Corp. 
pH8.5 



